Exploring the Sierra On-Line -Super-Junior- Computer
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Frank
The hard disk in the Legacy box is a Tandon MFM/RLL drive attached to a custom interface board specific to this configuration, which is why the drive is a 3. 5- form mounted in a 5. 25- package. Without removing the drive from the custom Legacy interface board, it won't work in another computer at all. Also, as mentioned in other comments, most MFM drives mate with their specific controller boards and can't be used with a different one without a reformat to pair the devices, though if it was originally RLL formatted it may work without a reformat.
Drives of that vintage typically used steppers and it was generally a bad idea to rotate the motor shaft because in doing so you were dragging the heads over the platters. However sometimes this was unavoidable because after 30 years or so the heads may have developed stiction and/or the lube in the stepper motor and/or the spindle motor has dried up and it needs a bit of help to get started. Many of the very early and especially the very large (5. 25-) drives also use spindle brakes of some sort, some requiring periodic adjustment so that they didn't drag (in the same manner of really old cars with drum brakes.
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The hard disk in the Legacy box is a Tandon MFM/RLL drive attached to a custom interface board specific to this configuration, which is why the drive is a 3. 5- form mounted in a 5. 25- package. Without removing the drive from the custom Legacy interface board, it won't work in another computer at all. Also, as mentioned in other comments, most MFM drives mate with their specific controller boards and can't be used with a different one without a reformat to pair the devices, though if it was originally RLL formatted it may work without a reformat.
Drives of that vintage typically used steppers and it was generally a bad idea to rotate the motor shaft because in doing so you were dragging the heads over the platters. However sometimes this was unavoidable because after 30 years or so the heads may have developed stiction and/or the lube in the stepper motor and/or the spindle motor has dried up and it needs a bit of help to get started. Many of the very early and especially the very large (5. 25-) drives also use spindle brakes of some sort, some requiring periodic adjustment so that they didn't drag (in the same manner of really old cars with drum brakes.
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Jonathan
This was the first computer I have ever used which was my dad's. It is what got me fascinated with computers. If you type the command -speeder- it will double the game speed. I think you type that after the executable. It worked well and always used it. Man brings back so many memories.
What was the the hard drive size? I think it was like 20MB, so small. I remember it had a switch on the back to switch between PCjr and PC. At the time I thought it just turned the hard drive on and more memory.
I just remember my dad saying he spent $1000 for it.
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This was the first computer I have ever used which was my dad's. It is what got me fascinated with computers. If you type the command -speeder- it will double the game speed. I think you type that after the executable. It worked well and always used it. Man brings back so many memories.
What was the the hard drive size? I think it was like 20MB, so small. I remember it had a switch on the back to switch between PCjr and PC. At the time I thought it just turned the hard drive on and more memory.
I just remember my dad saying he spent $1000 for it.
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Nimble
It was almost fated. All you had to go through, to get to Computer Reset. And amongst mountains and mountains and mountains of Computer stuff, you just saw Ken Williams' computer sitting there. Like Indy seeing the Holy Grail amongst the more lavish goblets.
You were meant to find this, man! Now, I dunno what you've done since this video, but since you've already copied all the data, you could do a low-level format and then put all the files back onto the PC from the floppies. Just a thought!
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It was almost fated. All you had to go through, to get to Computer Reset. And amongst mountains and mountains and mountains of Computer stuff, you just saw Ken Williams' computer sitting there. Like Indy seeing the Holy Grail amongst the more lavish goblets.
You were meant to find this, man! Now, I dunno what you've done since this video, but since you've already copied all the data, you could do a low-level format and then put all the files back onto the PC from the floppies. Just a thought!
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Ck
Hello LGR I see you making a lot of repairs I'm wondering if you got any ideas how I can fix my power Mac g5 I used some software that gets rid of readme files and other languages that I don't read when I boot it up the Mac it wouldn't let me do anything with the mouse and down in the Dock nothing would work when I clicked on it.
Do you have any ideas how I can restore the power Mac g5?
it's running leopard software.
thank you for your time
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Hello LGR I see you making a lot of repairs I'm wondering if you got any ideas how I can fix my power Mac g5 I used some software that gets rid of readme files and other languages that I don't read when I boot it up the Mac it wouldn't let me do anything with the mouse and down in the Dock nothing would work when I clicked on it.
Do you have any ideas how I can restore the power Mac g5?
it's running leopard software.
thank you for your time
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Jonathan
I know a lot of people hate pcjr I dont I had a well equipped pcjr thanks to my hard working parents and a lot of odd jobs as a teenager. I was able to get through High School. It was quite an upgrade from my still beloved TRS-80 CoCo. The printer was a Epson FX 80 It was the most I could afford at that time. I have computers that are a thousand times more capable but if I could I would have a IBM PCjr to play with.
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I know a lot of people hate pcjr I dont I had a well equipped pcjr thanks to my hard working parents and a lot of odd jobs as a teenager. I was able to get through High School. It was quite an upgrade from my still beloved TRS-80 CoCo. The printer was a Epson FX 80 It was the most I could afford at that time. I have computers that are a thousand times more capable but if I could I would have a IBM PCjr to play with.
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Marc
I know this is old, but if my aged tech brain still works right, those old hard drives often needed their controller card paired with them. Specific models of controller cards went with particular drives, because the controlling hardware was often split between the circuit board on the card and the circuit board on the HDD. On IDE, all the hardware to control the drive was placed on the circuit board on the drive.
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I know this is old, but if my aged tech brain still works right, those old hard drives often needed their controller card paired with them. Specific models of controller cards went with particular drives, because the controlling hardware was often split between the circuit board on the card and the circuit board on the HDD. On IDE, all the hardware to control the drive was placed on the circuit board on the drive.
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weust
I remember Fastback. It was on a CT computer my dad brought home from work in 1990 or perhaps a year later. It had a 5. 25- backup drive with cassette size takes. Think they were 20MB each.
I played with it and even made backups on our from a 386 using a parallel port connection between the two computers.
My first entry into the PC after the Atari 8 bit died of hardware failure.
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I remember Fastback. It was on a CT computer my dad brought home from work in 1990 or perhaps a year later. It had a 5. 25- backup drive with cassette size takes. Think they were 20MB each.
I played with it and even made backups on our from a 386 using a parallel port connection between the two computers.
My first entry into the PC after the Atari 8 bit died of hardware failure.
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LGR
Turns out all those ICEMANSG. - files are just savegames! I initially assumed they were something more interesting since they were -40KB each, but I guess not haha. Seems the game just creates some pretty beefy save files. Still, it's neat to have a bunch of old saves from the Sierra QA department though.
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Turns out all those ICEMANSG. - files are just savegames! I initially assumed they were something more interesting since they were -40KB each, but I guess not haha. Seems the game just creates some pretty beefy save files. Still, it's neat to have a bunch of old saves from the Sierra QA department though.
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zechs
This reminded me of my second job around 15yo at a repair shop, getting the eeeextra long ide cable and connecting a customer hdd to the PC we had on top of the drinks fridge/freezer so we could put the drive inside the freezer and get one last boot out of it to pull a backup.
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This reminded me of my second job around 15yo at a repair shop, getting the eeeextra long ide cable and connecting a customer hdd to the PC we had on top of the drinks fridge/freezer so we could put the drive inside the freezer and get one last boot out of it to pull a backup.
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Than
yup, no matter what the rifa cap is in its gonna go, i know many of the old computers came with it, my apple iie did not, it has a couple red miwa caps which i think are for filtering by where they are located, but also the power socket is also filtered.
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yup, no matter what the rifa cap is in its gonna go, i know many of the old computers came with it, my apple iie did not, it has a couple red miwa caps which i think are for filtering by where they are located, but also the power socket is also filtered.
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